Unless you are plannig on tearing apart both engines anyways, then swapping the plates isn't a good idea. Reason being is that it would require taking apart about half of the engine to get this plate off, plus you would need to buy a gasket set to put it all back together again.
Drilling two holes takes about 15 minutes and no money to do.
Also, the size of the cam journals changed in '54, so it might be necessary to enlarge the cam hole in '53 and earlier plates, but I'm not completely sure of this point.
As for the water pump, I would still opt for the adapter plate to allow you to use the '54 and earlier pump. I believe Tony P has done both types of mods on his trucks and found this to work the best temperature wise. The plate is pretty thin and doesn't affect the belt alignment, so I'm told. You would need to drill and tap a hole to use it, but it's not difficult.
